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Today's 101.9 Features

After being away for seven years, The Wallflowers knew they had to come back with a bang if anyone was going to care.

The first thing the band decided was they needed to be inspired to write new music so they started talking about the artists they loved.

Keyboardist Rami Jaffee told CBS Local this was a process that they had used before and had even led them to make some of their biggest hits.

“With ‘One Headlight,’ I had said ‘Let’s add a little Motown, a little Al Green, a little Memphis in there,’” Jaffee explained. “Just to say that in the studio really just sets us off in a direction.

With this album they tried to expand their sound, even incorporating a few influences (like The Clash) that some fans might be surprised about.

Though lead singer Jakob Dylan questions whether their love of punk is really that unusual.

“They could be surprised by some stuff about us,” he joked. “Probably not about our musical choices though.”

Once the band was getting ready to record their 6th album they knew they needed to find the right location.

Getting out of Los Angeles was a must since they all agreed their hometown would offer too many distractions. The band eventually decided to head down to Nashville, Tennessee, shacking up in Easy Eye Sound Studio, which is owned by Dan Auerbach, the guitarist from The Black Keys.

“It’s one great sized-room,” Dylan explained. “You don’t get lost in pinball machines, signing-in or metal detectors, which is happening in so many studios. It’s real simple.”

Jaffee agreed that it had a funky vibe that made it stand out in comparison to other places.

“Most studios go so over the top and then it doesn’t become a cool place to record,” Jaffee said. “There it’s just, ‘We’re in this box, let’s play some music.’”

The band eventually decided to call their upcoming October 9 release Glad All Over.

“It sounds positive, it’s concise and it’s a statement,” he said. “We had a lot of other titles, probably more interesting ones, but I like the message especially right now. It’s something I’d be happy to sit behind.”

Jaffee especially liked that it could mean different things to different people.

“It has a couple of meanings,” he said. “Glad all over or glad all over again, which is always fun.”

But in the end, Jaffee says the title just represented the band’s feelings on their musical comeback.

“We are just glad all over.”

This Thursday, October 4 at 9 pm EST, The Wallflowers will perform a streaming concert for the Live on Letterman series. Fans can watch the entire show live, right here.